Weird Things that College Made Me Do

Original Posting: May 2011
1 – Weird food combinations
Now, this is something that I've always done anyway, but I wound up doing some very bizarre stuff. Consider: Butternut squash soup, orange juice, a banana, yogurt, quick oats, flax seeds, protein powder, and cranberries. All at once, in the same cup. I kid you not. Sometimes when you don't get the flavor you want, you grab whatever will give you that value. If I want something a bit more sour, I'll throw in orange juice. If I want something creamier, I'll add some yogurt. Want sweet? Dried blueberries. I had such things in spades this past semester.

Salsa with banana chips? Best. Snack. EVER.

2 – A fridge full of condiments and no food
Well, this isn't literally true, but close enough. Oh, yes, once in while I bought chips to go with the hummus or whatnot, but by the end of the spring semester, I was just eating the condiments straight out of the container. I still like to just open the thing of salsa and eat it with a spoon.

3 – Stay up late just to play pool
There's a pool table in the TUB, and a friend introduced me to it one of the last weeks of the semester. He's... really really good at pool. And it turns out that as long as I focus, I'm actually not that bad (I credit my many bored hours of playing PC pool when I was a child...). But I wanted to say that I could beat him fair and square (meaning that I would be the one to sink the 8 ball after all else was done), so after the first night, I challenged him to a rematch. A midnight meeting was set.

I still need to sink that 8 ball. On purpose, I mean…

There's always next semester!

4 – Stay up all night just because I'm used to it
This is pretty self-explanatory. I never got to watch the sun come up, though. Sucky timing; sucky weather.

5 – Use an umbrella
This one is only weird if you know that I live in Washington. (Don't ask me which one.) And I don't mean that I live in Washington because I'm going to college here. I'm a native Washingtonian, born, bred, raised. We never use umbrellas, and we laugh at those who do.

Cos, see, in Washington, it's easy to tell who's not from around here. It's not the lack of our distinctive Washington accent that tips us off (although if you show up with a strong Southern drawl or a New York snark, we will notice). Nope; it's the people who react to our weather like they've never seen anything like it before.

Maybe it's because I grew up with it, but I find it hilarious that out-of-staters will pull out the umbrella and rain boots for a drizzle -- not even anything.

Now; I love the rain. I really do. But this year, walking in the weather several times a day (with freshly-done hair and makeup that I don't want to ruin) has made me really appreciate the umbrella.

Now, my favorite rain is the heavy rain. In summer, when it's warm. That's not so fun to walk in during the winter.

So, eventually, I caved and bought an umbrella.

I'm not completely gone: I don't have rain boots. Although I did almost buy some at one point, because I have Converse, and then all of my other shoes are sandals, or ballet flats with varying degrees of waterproof-ness. But I couldn't find any that were cute enough that were also cheap enough (I’m sorry, I just can’t justify paying any more than $20 for a pair of shoes/boots). Go figure!

If the next winter is as bad as this past one was (it's been very tentatively spring for the past week or so – we had a super-long winter), then maybe I'll get rain boots. If I find some that are cute enough...

But I still make fun of my roommate for pulling out her umbrella at the first very tiny little bead of water that lands on her.

6 – Date a musician


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That’s all for now. I might add to this later; who knows. College has completely changed my perception of normalcy, so it might be that my parents will point new habits out to me in due time, once I’m home!

Until next time!

♥Sarah

6.2 – I totally kid
His name is Ryan. We've been dating for almost eight months. I adore him. The "little king" and the "princess." I know, right? Too sweet...